Motives For Reform
Commentators have suggested the following reasons why civil celebrancy was introduced, and why it succeeded so quickly:
• The 1960s in Australia was a decade of questioning established institutions and of profound social change.
• There was extreme dissatisfaction with the marriage “registry offices” of the time. Couples, who could not or would not use clerical celebrants, were humiliated by perfunctory and undignified ceremonies. Several churches discouraged or forbad remarriage of divorced people; and the offensively dismissive marriages offered by the state in registry offices often seemed designed to add to the distress of couples who were defying their own church's rules.
• There was dissatisfaction with the main Christian denominations of the time, especially the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, predominantly with regard to the treatment of divorced persons and of those choosing partners of other denominations ("mixed marriages").
• There were strong objections to marriage and the marriage ceremony wording by feminists .
• National census figures showed an increasing percentage of people declaring themselves “No religion”.
• Divorces, though common, were expensive, traumatic, and involved legal apportioning of blame. This indirectly tainted the institution of marriage.
Read more about this topic: Celebrant (Australia)
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